Cities full of skirmishers

[Djurre]

Im playing rome, and the rebel cities are all full of skirmishers.

what do i do to keep these cheap bastards from making allot of casualties on my expensive armies. do i field cheap troops too? roarii or something?

[JeffBag]

Actually, there isn't much you can do, since no matter what, you'll take horrendous casualties if you try to storm his walls, and lesser troops would simply be massacred even before they set up their ladders. What you can try is to bypass his defenses instead; after clicking start battle, run your entire force to another side of his walls, which should be undefended, and then attack.

[Musopticon?]

*fondly remember conquering Crimea from three peltastai stacks in 0.74*

And I was supposed to be liberating the Greek inhabitans from barbarian rule. Heh, I think the greeks there were pretty happy to fight as heavy skirmishers, there was like four units of scythians only among the three armies and everything else was greek peltasts.

[Simmons]

Peltast armys suck but are easy to beat if you can cox them out of their city which isnt that hard once they have filled the city to overflowing just park yourself next to it and wait for them to come to you.

[CountArach]

I wait for the enemy to sally. you can probably kill off about half the army if you are willing to wait.

Afte rthey sally, play historical Roman. Place several units of Hastati ahead of your better troops, and let them just die. After the enemy have used up their javelins, just wait for them to advance to your better soldiers, who should be on fire at will, and will be able to hit the enemy with their own javelins. Once combat is forced, you should have no problem.

Also remember that Equites should stay behind the enemy army to catch them in the rout, before launching one massive rear charge, thus clenching the battle.

[iberus_generalis]

i like to sit and wait for them to come out of the city...then, as the romani, i send my ranged units, to the front, while they are still exiting the citiy, and slaughter them at the choke point...than i send in every infantary in, and wipe out the rest...i don't care about historical armies...hastatis, and principes, it's all the same for me....cannon fodder...if some of them survive...the better....

[pezhetairoi]

Yep, or if possible I like to besiege the city and wait for any other rebel stacks in the province to relieve the city. Then there's the prospect of fighting a battle of annihilation in the plains/mountains/forests. Much like how Napoleon hated sieges, preferring to conquer cities on the battlefield. :D

[Trithemius]

Yep, or if possible I like to besiege the city and wait for any other rebel stacks in the province to relieve the city. Then there's the prospect of fighting a battle of annihilation in the plains/mountains/forests. Much like how Napoleon hated sieges, preferring to conquer cities on the battlefield. :D

That had a lot to do with the problem of fortification in Europe in the preceeding centuries. As a tangent - I am very curious about how MTW2 plans to model the "military revolution" (mobile batteries, trace italienne, etc).

[Watchman]

Really mobile field artillery was really more of a 1600s thing really.

Personally, when I was wresting Sicily from assorted rebel scum and their Peltastai piles with the Carthaginians I went and hired a few merc Peltast units for the sole purpose of acting as a javelin-absorbing skirmish screen ahead of my less easily replaced troops. And of course do the usual Peltast skirmish-and-flank thing the rest of the time. Worked pretty well, especially once I could put a line of archers behind the Peltasts...

[Trithemius]

Really mobile field artillery was really more of a 1600s thing really.

I just said mobile batteries, I did not mean Gustavan-style brigade-level artillery.

The Italian Wars, which took place from the late 15th to the mid 16th centuries (that is to say the 1490s and 1550s), are cited by many period commentators as being a critical point in the development of siege operation techniques; it was said that sieges that previously took weeks to resolve could now be won in a matter of days by the French with their lighter multiple gun batteries.


Personally, when I was wresting Sicily from assorted rebel scum and their Peltastai piles with the Carthaginians I went and hired a few merc Peltast units for the sole purpose of acting as a javelin-absorbing skirmish screen ahead of my less easily replaced troops. And of course do the usual Peltast skirmish-and-flank thing the rest of the time. Worked pretty well, especially once I could put a line of archers behind the Peltasts...

I did this too, although I mostly used the mercenary peltastai as javelin-fodder to catch the enemy troops so my slower infantry could catch them and cut them to bits.